Koizumi Shintarou is 30 years old, a virgin, and has isolated himself in his room for 15 years. He has become a burden on his father, Koizumi Yasujirou. One day, Shintarou makes a proposition that if Yasujirou gets a girlfriend, Shintarou will come out of his room. It turns out that Yasujirou has already made a girlfriend, a young beautiful woman, Yoshinaga Haruka, who is with Yasujirou for her own personal reasons. Yasujirou and Haruka decide to get married, but Yasujirou dies on their honeymoon. Now Haruka decides to take care of Shintarou, and so this weird "mother and son" are now living together.

First and most important - the ending was very unpleasant and left a sour taste after that. I feel very sorry for Haruka. Not to speak of all the unrealistic stuff in this manga too, and on top of that it is not even good unrealistic - it's bad. There was even no romance in the whole thing, as you will come to realize after the ending. A poor try by the author to solve the hikikomori issue. I don't want to continue this review. No positive things to say, apart from the fact it was emotional, so it leaves an impact, unlike a lot of other average manga.

The series was good but not the best. It was quite unusual but touching. Most people say its quite unrealistic (I agree Haruka liking and marrying Shintarou's father was unrealistic), but I think the majority is realistic as most seinen manga should.

This especially applies to the ending;

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you would like Shintarou to end up with Haruka (I did) but considering the mangaka trying to keep it close to reality, and I supposed Haruka's "duty" as a mother and wife, the ending is fine and very good.

But I suppose you have to consider

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the mangaka's possible intention to create a character like Haruka who is understanding and caring, and able to pull Shintarou back into society and make him act independently. Consider the title also. Translated it means "maternal feelings". I supposed the crux of the manga is, quoting a new Shintarou, "you may not believe this, but people can change".

The story was weird but made sense and was heartfelt. A good manga with a touching ending; worth the read. =)

A weird, really weird story but at least it make sense Despite that the girl is unrealistic the story is touching. Great artwork from Oku Hiroya sensei and the ending are the good points of thsi series.

This series was really... odd. The art is great, I gotta give it that at least. However, the story was really unrealistic. The male protagonist provide no apparent reason for the readers to connect with him. He was, plain out, a pathetic person with no special qualities. Additionally, the hot girl married a 60ish year old man just because he resembled her father? Wtf? She could be a star on TV, yet she gave it away because her 60ish year old husband died and left her a 30yr old son who is practically going nowhere in life. The moral of the story seems to be that "Everyone can change". However, the story was weird/creepy with characters that are uninteresting and really provide nothing for the readers to connect with.

the whole manga was quite deep, and heartbreaking, i am not happy with ending, but that is something i can't change...I wish that they would be togetherArt is quite good, characters too, Shintarou is quite crybaby, story progressed at the end too quickly in my opinion

What a powerful and heart wrenching story. I cried several times and laughed at times too. I wish the ending had of been different, but I am a romantic at heart. I think it was a great ending, all the same. What wonderful characters. Wonderful story line. It really moved me and touched my heart. Give it a read. It is worth it.

Behavior and motives of characters are unrealistic. Hikkomori is supposedly pretty common in japan and a serious problem. Instead of addressing that, the mangaka chose to go down the romance path. I would have to liked to see the hikkomori issue explored more like in NHK. The romance between the characters was really forced, almost made me puke. The ending was so rushed like the mangaka got bored and went back to Gantz.

Unlike most people here, I loved the ending, and I couldn't imagine it ending any other way. But the romance between the main characters was a bit forced though. Anyway It has a great art, nice ending and a really pretty female heroine

Shintarou found a diary of his father and realized that he needed to changed. 6 years later, he changed into a normal guy. He seem to be married to another woman, and had a child. Haruka came to visit and told his wife to take care of him, and in the end, Shintarou, ran to Haruka and yelled out "Thank you, mother" to her. In conclusion, the two didn't end up together but Shintarou changed into a normal guy.

It's good, but could have been a WHOLE lot better.

What SHOULD HAVE happened:

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Haruka and Shintarou's dad never got married, but Haruka still loves him. They go out together, and visited Shin. Shin falls in love with her, and confesses countless amount of times, but Haruka rejects because she's in love with his father. But Shin doesn't give up, and Haruka started falling for him. He changed solely for her, cut his hair, shaved his beard, throw away his manga, and locked away his computer (it must be really, really difficult!) and they live happily ever after. It ends with Haruka carrying Shin's child. Oh, and in this story, Shin is not 30 years old, but only 23, and Haruka is 20! I mean, who locks themselves up for 15 years? Honestly.